Astronomers Discover 49 New Galaxies in Record Time

An international team of astronomers has identified 49 new gas-rich galaxies. The team used the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa for their research, which is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Four nearby galaxies as part of the set of 49 found by MeerKAT, shown by the white contours. Three of the galaxies are connected together by their gas content. Credit: ICRAR

The research was led by Dr. Marcin Glowacki from the Curtin University node of the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western Australia. The initial aim was to study the star-forming gas in a single radio galaxy. However, while the team didn't find any star-forming gas in the galaxy they were studying, Dr. Glowacki discovered other galaxies while inspecting the data.

The observations, which lasted less than three hours, were facilitated by the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA). "I did not expect to find almost 50 new galaxies in such a short time," said Dr. Glowacki. "By implementing different techniques for finding galaxies, which are used for other MeerKAT surveys, we were able to detect all of these galaxies and reveal their gas content."

The newly discovered galaxies have been informally nicknamed the '49ers', a nod to the 1849 California gold rush miners. Dr. Glowacki views the 49 new galaxies as valuable as gold nuggets in our night sky. Many of these galaxies are near each other, forming galaxy groups, with several identified in one observation.

Three of the galaxies are directly connected by their gas. "These three are particularly interesting, as by studying the galaxies at other wavelengths of light, we discovered the central galaxy is forming many stars. It is likely stealing the gas from its companion galaxies to fuel its star formation, which may lead the other two to become inactive," explained Dr. Glowacki.

Professor Ed Elson, from the University of the Western Cape and a co-author of the paper, highlighted the power of the MeerKAT telescope as an imaging instrument. "The methods we developed and implemented to study the 49ers will be useful for MeerKAT large science surveys and smaller observing campaigns such as ours," he said.

Dr. Glowacki, along with Jasmine White, an ICRAR summer student, has recently discovered more gas-rich galaxies by analyzing short observations made by MeerKAT. "We hope to continue our studies and share even more discoveries of new gas-rich galaxies with the wider community soon," Dr. Glowacki concluded. This discovery marks a significant milestone in our understanding of the universe and paves the way for future explorations.